Dr. Albert Bartlett's "Laws of Sustainability"

Posted by Gail the Actuary on November 6, 2009 - 10:15am

At the Denver ASPO conference, I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Albert Bartlett. Afterward, Dr. Bartlett e-mailed me some material he had written over the years. The "Laws of Sustainability" were included in this material. They are part of Al Bartlett's contribution to the anthology The Future of Sustainability by Marco Keiner, published in 2006. The document by Dr. Bartlett from which these were excerpted can be found here.

LAWS OF SUSTAINABILITY

The Laws that follow are offered to define the term "sustainability." In some cases these statements are accompanied by corollaries that are identified by capital letters. They all apply for populations and rates of consumption of goods and resources of the sizes and scales found in the world in 2005, and may not be applicable for small numbers of people or to groups in primitive tribal situations.

These Laws are believed to hold rigorously.

The list is but a single compilation, and hence may be incomplete. Readers are invited to communicate with the author in regard to items that should or should not be in this list.

First Law: Population growth and / or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.

A) A population growth rate less than or equal to zero and declining rates of consumption of resources are a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for a sustainable society.

B) Unsustainability will be the certain result of any program of "development," that does not plan the achievement of zero (or a period of negative) growth of populations and of rates of consumption of resources. This is true even if the program is said to be “sustainable.”

C) The research and regulation programs of governmental agencies that are charged with protecting the environment and promoting "sustainability" are, in the long run, irrelevant, unless these programs address vigorously and quantitatively the concept of carrying capacities and unless the programs study in depth the demographic causes and consequences of environmental problems.

D) Societies, or sectors of a society, that depend on population growth or growth in their rates of consumption of resources, are unsustainable.

E) Persons who advocate population growth and / or growth in the rates of consumption of resources are advocating unsustainability.

F) Persons who suggest that sustainability can be achieved without stopping population growth are misleading themselves and others.

G) Persons whose actions directly or indirectly cause increases in population or in the rates of consumption of resources are moving society away from sustainability.

H) The term "Sustainable Growth" is an oxymoron.

I) In terms of population sizes and rates of resource consumption, “The only smart growth is no growth.” (Hammond, 1999)

Second Law: In a society with a growing population and / or growing rates of consumption of resources, the larger the population, and / or the larger the rates of consumption of resources, the more difficult it will be to transform the society to the condition of sustainability.

Third Law: The response time of populations to changes in the human fertility rate is the average length of a human life, or approximately 70 years. (Bartlett and Lytwak 1995) [This is called "population momentum."]

A) A nation can achieve zero population growth if:
a) the fertility rate is maintained at the replacement level for 70 years, and
b) there is no net migration during the 70 years.
During the 70 years the population continues to grow, but at declining rates until the growth finally stops after approximately 70 years.

B) If we want to make changes in the total fertility rates so as to stabilize the population by the mid - to late 21st century, we must make the necessary changes now.

C) The time horizon of political leaders is of the order of two to eight years.

D) It will be difficult to convince political leaders to act now to change course, when the full results of the change may not become apparent in the lifetimes of those leaders.

Fourth Law: The size of population that can be sustained (the carrying capacity) and the sustainable average standard of living of the population are inversely related to one another. (This must be true even though Cohen asserts that the numerical size of the carrying capacity of the Earth cannot be determined, (Cohen 1995))

A) The higher the standard of living one wishes to sustain, the more urgent it is to stop population growth.

B) Reductions in the rates of consumption of resources and reductions in the rates of production of pollution can shift the carrying capacity in the direction of sustaining a larger population.

Fifth Law: One cannot sustain a world in which some regions have high standards of living while others have low standards of living.

A) World trade involves the exportation and importation of carrying capacity.

Seventh Law: A society that has to import people to do its daily work (“We can’t find locals who will do the work,”) is not sustainable.

Eighth Law: Sustainability requires that the size of the population be less than or equal to the carrying capacity of the ecosystem for the desired standard of living.

A) Sustainability requires an equilibrium between human society and dynamic but stable ecosystems.

B) Destruction of ecosystems tends to reduce the carrying capacity and / or the sustainable standard of living.

C) The rate of destruction of ecosystems increases as the rate of growth of the population increases.

D) Affluent countries, through world trade, destroy the ecosystems of less developed countries.

E) Population growth rates less than or equal to zero are necessary, but are not sufficient, conditions for halting the destruction of the environment. This is true locally and globally.

Ninth Law: ( The lesson of "The Tragedy of the Commons" ) (Hardin 1968): The benefits of population growth and of growth in the rates of consumption of resources accrue to a few; the costs of population growth and growth in the rates of consumption of resources are borne by all of society.

A) Individuals who benefit from growth will continue to exert strong pressures supporting and encouraging both population growth and growth in rates of consumption of resources.

B) The individuals who promote growth are motivated by the recognition that growth is good for them. In order to gain public support for their goals, they must convince people that population growth and growth in the rates of consumption of resources, are also good for society. [This is the Charles Wilson argument: if it is good for General Motors, it is good for the United States.] (Yates 1983)

Tenth Law: Growth in the rate of consumption of a non-renewable resource, such as a fossil fuel, causes a dramatic decrease in the life-expectancy of the resource.

A) In a world of growing rates of consumption of resources, it is seriously misleading to state the life-expectancy of a non-renewable resource "at present rates of consumption," i.e., with no growth. More relevant than the life-expectancy of a resource is the expected date of the peak production of the resource, i.e. the peak of the Hubbert curve. (Hubbert 1972)

B) It is intellectually dishonest to advocate growth in the rate of consumption of non-renewable resources while, at the same time, reassuring people about how long the resources will last "at present rates of consumption.” (zero growth)

Eleventh Law: The time of expiration of non-renewable resources can be postponed, possibly for a very long time, by:

i ) technological improvements in the efficiency with which the resources are recovered and used

ii ) using the resources in accord with a program of "Sustained Availability," (Bartlett 1986)

iii ) recycling

iv ) the use of substitute resources.

Twelfth Law: When large efforts are made to improve the efficiency with which resources are used, the resulting savings are easily and completely wiped out by the added resources that are consumed as a consequence of modest increases in population.

A) When the efficiency of resource use is increased, the consequence often is that the "saved" resources are not put aside for the use of future generations, but instead are used immediately to encourage and support larger populations.

B) Humans have an enormous compulsion to find an immediate use for all available resources.

Thirteenth Law: The benefits of large efforts to preserve the environment are easily canceled by the added demands on the environment that result from small increases in human population.

Fourteenth Law: (Second Law of Thermodynamics) When rates of pollution exceed the natural cleansing capacity of the environment, it is easier to pollute than it is to clean up the environment.

A) This law should be a central part of higher education, especially in engineering.

Sixteenth Law: Humans will always be dependent on agriculture. (This is the first of Malthus’ two postulata.)

A) Supermarkets alone are not sufficient.

B) The central task in sustainable agriculture is to preserve agricultural land. The agricultural land must be protected from losses due to things such as:

i ) Urbanization and development

ii ) Erosion

iii ) Poisoning by chemicals

Seventeenth Law: If, for whatever reason, humans fail to stop population growth and growth in the rates of consumption of resources, Nature will stop these growths.

A) By contemporary western standards, Nature's method of stopping growth is cruel and inhumane.

B) Glimpses of Nature's method of dealing with populations that have exceeded the carrying capacity of their lands can be seen each night on the television news reports from places where large populations are experiencing starvation and misery.

Eighteenth Law: In local situations within the U.S., creating jobs increases the number of people locally who are out of work.

A) Newly created jobs in a community temporarily lowers the unemployment rate (say from 5% to 4%), but then people move into the community to restore the unemployment rate to its earlier higher value (of 5%), but this is 5% of the larger population, so more individuals are out of work than before.

Nineteenth Law: Starving people don't care about sustainability.

A) If sustainability is to be achieved, the necessary leadership and resources must be supplied by people who are not starving.

Twentieth Law: The addition of the word "sustainable" to our vocabulary, to our reports, programs, and papers, to the names of our academic institutes and research programs, and to our community initiatives, is not sufficient to ensure that our society becomes sustainable.

Twenty-First Law: Extinction is forever.

SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The challenge of making the transition to a sustainable society is enormous, in part because of a major global effort to keep people from recognizing the centrality of population growth to the enormous problems of the U.S. and the world.

• On the global scale, we need to support family planning throughout the world, and we should generally restrict our foreign aid to those countries that make continued demonstrated progress in reducing population growth rates and sizes.

• The immediate task is to restore numeracy to the population programs in the local, national and global agendas.

• On the national scale, we can work for the selection of leaders who will recognize that population growth is the major problem in the U.S. and who will initiate a national dialog on the problem. With a lot of work at the grassroots, our system of representative government will respond.

• On the local and national levels, we must focus serious attention and large fiscal resources on the development of renewable energy sources.

• On the local and national levels, we need to work to improve social justice and equity.

• On the community level in the U.S., we should work to make growth pay for itself.

REFERENCES

Bartlett, A.A., (1996), The Exponential Function, XI: The New Flat Earth Society, The Physics Teacher, Vol. 34, September 1996, pp. 342-343. Ten earlier articles on The Exponential Function have been published in The Physics Teacher since 1976.

Bartlett, A.A., Lytwak, E.P., (1995), Zero Growth of the Population of the United States Population & Environment, Vol. 16, No. 5, May 1995, pp. 415-428.

Cohen, J.E., (1995) How Many People Can the Earth Support? W.W. Norton & Co., New York City, 1995.

Hubbert, M.K., (1972) U.S. Energy Resources: A Review as of 1972, A background paper prepared at the request of Henry M. Jackson, Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, United States Senate pursuant to Senate Resolution 45, A National Fuels and Energy Policy Study, Serial No. 93-40 (92-75), Part 1
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1974.

Yates, B., ( 1983 ) The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry, Empire Books, New York City, 1983, p. 123. Charles E. Wilson was the president of General Motors who "would outrage many with his aphorism: 'What is good for the country is good for General Motors and vice versa.’ "

I like the old fella, Albert, but the fact that there is no mention of climate change or global warming shows how dated he is. So, like the other recent thread about how we have to cut down and downscale, this is all a little beside the point. We here at TOD are so wrapped up in oil depletion speculation that we've missed the main game. Listen to all these podcasts and then ask yourself if global warming is not the real endgame:

Right- the job rests with me. Forget the politicians and the business people.

I have had the experience you all have- trying to discuss any of this with adults is hopeless.

But then try the kids! I gave a little talk to a small bunch of 11-13 yr. olds, and they got it all RIGHT NOW! Somehow it was easy for them to get the idea that anything doubling in n years is invisible until overwhelming, and that doubling of ANYTHING in ANY n years is hopeless on a finite planet.

So. Forget the adults, talk with the kids.

But, truth is; invisible until overwhelming. Too late. Damn.

PS. None of this is any news. I was told all of it by my profs in the '50's, when it still wasn't too late.

I began reading Isaac Asimov in the 50's, and sadly he has passed away. One of his enduring themes was overpopulation. He used to ask, "Doesn't anyone care?"

I guess we all know the answer to that one, now. Don't we?

We are looking down the barrel of the 'mother nature gun,' and for some reason we still don't get it. Whether the end game comes from AGW or economic collapse from PO, or some other means, when all is said and done Nature insists that we reduce our population to sustainable levels, and if we don't Nature will take care of it.

Those of us who survive may enjoy the new world... we just won't enjoy the trip that gets us there.

Yes, laws 8 & 9, and perhaps 13 & 14 have some bearing. Current global warming and climate change are a consequence of not living sustainably, so they are a consequence of not following these "laws" and don't need to be stated in a law, though it would help if they were mentioned in some of the corollaries.

Dunno. I'm left with an enormous sense of melancholia listening to all the podcasts linked above. There is a rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouching towards the earth, and I'm battling with a sense of hopelessness right now. This is much, much bigger than oil and energy.

If everything is natural, then natural has no meaning. All you are then saying is "everything is everything," a truth, but not a very useful one, being a tautology, and all that.

The fact of the matter is, nature has long been defined as life and systems other than human in western languages. Further, non-human life and systems have been seen by most of industrial culture as something to control and overcome.

Words are what people mean by them, and the folks building (and especially paying for the building) the atom bomb and technologies did not think of themselves as working within or alongside of nature, but against nature.

But as the word nature has taken on more and more positive connotations, suddenly people want to turn around and say, "Hey, even though all the people involved in their development say the A bomb...as anti-natural, it's really all natural" and by this they mean all good.

It is as if a bigot heard that biologically there is no good basis for defining race since, for example, blacks from Africa, India and Australia have the most diverse and distinctive genes in the world even though all would have been equally mistreated by racists in apartheid So. Africa or Jim Crow southern US.

And upon hearing this he said, "Well, if their are no races, all those crosses I've been burning on people's lawns haven't been racist acts. How can they have been if there are no races biologically."

It is a kind of all-too-convenient sophistry. Particularly if the racist continues with said practices.

If you have in fact found a way to live that does not set yourself against all of nature, if you ecological footprint is well below one earth (see www.myfootprint.org for example), if you are living life in a way that is going to leave the same amount of non-renewable resources as when you came into the world, if you are going to leave the earth's soils richer and thicker than you found them...then perhaps you have the right to philosophize about everything being natural.

Short of that, your just being another ecological a'hole rationalizing his un-defensibly destructive actions and lifestyles (and those of others) by claiming, "Hey, it's all natural, man."

My sympathies are with you but I think the Beast has a point, in terms of technical definitions, according to some schools of thought in the field of biology.

One way of looking at the the chimps termite fishing stick, and our ancestors stone hammers is as extensions of our bodies-as natural as the shells some crabs use as thier homes, even though they did not make the shells.

I haven't seen anything in print along these lines in a while and this school of thought may be dead and forgotten-but I just read at random with occasional spells of concentration in a given area when something intrigues me.

I'm not sure what you mean by sustainable climate but, you're right, a constant climate is impossible. Adaptation to changes is crucial but slow changes are much easier to adapt to than rapid changes. It is human behaviour which is causing a potentially rapid shift in our climate, to which it will be very difficult to adapt. We could try to avoid such rapid change, I suppose, by altering our behaviour. I wonder how likely such alteration is.

An over arching law might be: Don't rob from the future, and do invest in the future. A corollary might be: Don't reduce the total amount of fertile soil, and do increase the fertility of the soil--leave the planet more abundant and more able to sustain a diversity of life than when you left it.

This would be a worthwhile purpose for humanity.

It is the polar opposite of what almost all of human society (especially industrialism) does now.

I like the old fella, Albert, but the fact that there is no mention of climate change or global warming shows how dated he is.

If we accept the fact that the current rapid climate change is largely due to an increase of green house gases that are emitted into the atmosphere (one of the commons) due to anthropogenic activity, then Dr. Albert's 9th Law, while not specifically addressing climate change by name, certainly applies.

I very much doubt that Dr. Bartlett is unaware of AGW or considers it an unimportant part of the big picture. I strongly suspect he considers it to be one more deleterious consequence of exponential population and economic growth.

Dr. Bartlett is very aware of AGW and at his ASPO talk he specifically focused upon reminding us that THE SINGLE BIGGEST driver of AGW is human population. It all comes down to this master variable in the equation that is driving the increase in global CO2, period. There was one question during the talk that really stuck with me. Somehow China came up and the question was what are we to do about them adding all the cars, coal power plants, and their refusal to accept carbon limits. His reply was a surprise, he said yes the media is really giving China a hard time on this but refuses to acknowledge their greatest contribution to slowing AGW: China's one-child policy has prevented 300 Million births, this has resulted in THE LARGEST CO2 reduction of any developing or industrial world power. Now, he is not a supporter of China nor does he agree with the method, but you have to be impressed with the results. He also said in the talk, that the cost of reducing CO2 through technological means (CO2 capture, sequestration, etc.) is 5X the cost of doing family planning which would produce the same CO2 reduction.

I left the conference with this concept turning over and over in my head and I'm convinced that my charitable contributions will not be going to Green Peace or other environmental groups, but instead to family planning and zero population growth groups. We really aren't investing government and private funds in areas where they would have the greatest impact on the environment, AGW, and world suffering.

my charitable contributions will not be going to Green Peace or other environmental groups, but instead to family planning and zero population growth groups

This has been my policy for several years now. Population Connection (previously Zero Population Growth) is one of the best as they address the political issues. The really sad fact is that the US government has done so very little in this regard because of the fundamentalist religious influence on US policies.

Perhaps, but I think it's too early to make this call. Things are spinning out of control so fast on so many fronts that it's pretty much not worth judging the horse race of what will hit first, hardest, and fastest.

No one knows exactly what the short and long term effects of an ice free (or even nearly so) Arctic Ocean will be, but one can imagine that they may be quite profound and widespread.

The resource depletion that will hit hardest, as far as I can see, will be of aquifers and other sources of fresh water, especially in Asia.

"Things are spinning out of control so fast on so many fronts that it's pretty much not worth judging the horse race of what will hit first, hardest, and fastest."
This is my view also. Coming back to equilibrium is getting harder, and taking longer, a sign of a very unstable situation.
The feedback lops are immense.

Good point Sir,
the change in Albedo due to an ice free summer arctic could be a tipping point and that is now expected in the next decade. According to research on the Younger Dryas using Greenland ice core data there was a 2-4C drop in temp in just 3 years.

But I am not so sure about Western Europe and the Americas, excepting the Southwest and a few other places such as Mexico City.

I take it that you are either assuming that we will figure out how to get by on less energy or that the water crunch will precede the energy crunch.

It seems to me that in most places,excepting irrigated or soon to be irrigated Asia, the energy crunch will result in very serious and widespread disruptions up to and including widespread war well before water becomes a truly critical issue.

Who knows. These problems are all so interconnected, it may never be possible to tease apart proximate from ultimate causes.

Fossil fuel and technology of course allowed the wells to be drilled and the pumps to extract so much "fossil water," and energy shortages will doubtless make it ever more difficult to "mine" for ever deeper water as the levels in the aquifers continue to fall.

the energy - water relation is tightly bound. it is requiring ever greater amounts of water to generate a unit of energy (see some of the work on EROWI). at the same time it takes an increasing amount of energy to produce a unit of water.

in the U.S., uneconomic growth has long surpassed economic growth. we're just too blind to see it.

How is climate change not about unsustainable practices? Since the two cannot be separated, and Albert is a very bright guy, I think it safe to assume the post was focused on what it was focused on and not meant to be a treatise on all things Doomerish.

I don't think we are all 'wrapped up in oil depletion'. The Oil Drum has diversified enormously and embraces discussions about just about every aspect of our terminal crisis - including global warming. All these things - population, resource depletion, climate change, are intricately connected. You might argue that Global Warming is (merely) one of the consequences of all the other things we are doing. If we turn the world into a desert, perhaps it's only an extra problem that it will be a hot desert.

The Oil Drum has diversified enormously and embraces discussions about just about every aspect of our terminal crisis - including global warming.

IIRC it wasn't very long ago that a goodly proportion of posters here were AGW skeptics (I suspect just conservatives following the party line). I notice they have moved on, quietened down or changed their minds, mostly. (Cue skeptic protestations here).

Dee, what do you suppose caused all those greenhouse gases to enter the atmosphere and ocean, space aliens? No no no, Albert is focusing on the real cause of the problems, population and resources consumption, not the effects, like climate change and global warming. That's why if you focus on the latter without fixing the former, well, you don't fix anything, do you?

If you cannot to any scientific information to indicate - let alone prove - your assertion that all climate science is a sham, then you have a moral, ethical and *legal* obligation to stop posting such lies and propaganda.

Since there are zero papers that support your position, it is time for you to be quiet.

As to the legal aspect, you care claiming, quite carelessly, that every climate scientist, politico, government employee and individual on the planet is lying and making up fake science, or knowingly supporting it.

1. Again, there is no scientific support for your position.

2. There is zero evidence of any conspiracy on any scale whatsoever with regards to climate science. Given we are talking about millions of people, this doesn't pass the sniff test.

3. If you are saying the scientists, particularly, are all lying, that is libel.

2 a : a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression b (1) : a statement or representation published without just cause and tending to expose another to public contempt (2) : defamation of a person by written or representational means

Hopefully, at some point someone will sue one of you propagandists for this. It is a violation of statutes.

However, the opposite cannot be said for people on your side. The evidence that the denialist stance is manufactured is overwhelming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups representing the oil, coal and auto industries, among others. In 1997, the year an international climate agreement that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, its budget totaled $1.68 million, according to tax records obtained by environmental groups.

There's a lot more, but that's really all you need to know. More later, if you're of a mind for an **honest** conversation.

Sure. The $4 billion/year spent on made up GCMs (that have all been proved wrong by actual measurements) is money well spent. And also the various absurd doomsday predictions. What was that latest poll number again? Was it 70% that DONT believe in AGW? I guess that propaganda machine from your side is losing it's luster. I'm sure the 10.2% unemployed couldn't care less about AGW either. Don't worry, whatever else goes wrong you can always blame it on George Bush! lol

What are your predictions? I assume you have predictions of what you expect will occur within the world political, economic, industrial and ecological spectrum. You could explain the absurdity of the "doomsday" predictions.
Why do you think there is a need to conserve? If so, what needs to be conserved and why?
Thank you kind all knowing sir.

On global warming? You could burn all the fossil fuels ever discovered and you would still have an atmosphere that's less than 1/10 of 1% CO2. Not enough to change the temperature any. The theory will go down as the biggest farce in human history.

Globally, China will surpass the US as the world leader in GDP. They have the most people, which is the best resource (not the biggest problem).

The biggest shift in technology near term will be the electrification of the transportation sector. It's just a much more efficient way to get from point A to point B.

What needs to be conserved? EVERYTHING! The expanding world population requires this.

You could burn all the fossil fuels ever discovered and you would still have an atmosphere that's less than 1/10 of 1% CO2. Not enough to change the temperature any. The theory will go down as the biggest farce in human history.

Some 56 percent of likely general-election voters say global warming is happening now, and a further 21 percent say it will happen in the future, according to a survey by Democratic Pollster Mark Mellman and Republican pollster Bill McInturff. By contrast, some 16 percent said global warming will not happen.

The study was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts Global Warming Campaign.

When asked whether they favored having the United States take steps to reduce the emission of gases like carbon dioxide that cause global warming, 77 percent of respondents favored action, 18 percent opposed action, and 5 percent were undecided.

Over the same period, there has been a comparable decline in the proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels. Just 36% say that currently, down from 47% last year.

And which of your points should I address? The made up GCMs that probably include the climatologist's shoe size as one of the variables? Or the peer (err social circle) reviewed papers that aren't worth the paper they're printed on?

Here's a few points for ya. IIRC, you and the other left wing loons were proclaiming last year how this whole problem just got solved with the election of your messiah. So is it solved now? Have CO2 levels gone down by executive order yet? lol How shocked you must all be to learn that Obama is not quite as omniscient as he had you all believing!

James The Man Hansen himself testified that cap & trade will do nothing to lower CO2 levels. And in 4 years, IT'S ALL OVER! Tipping point reached! And you can't even get that bill passed with majorities in both houses AND the white house. lol

Good luck trying to get the average US household to turn off their furnace in the middle of winter. Or park their cars and walk 20 miles to work and back (those that still have jobs). Obama is doing a great job at eliminating the need to drive to work and back, I'll give him that much.

NEWS FLASH! CO2 levels are sill going up not down. And there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it. "Climate sensitivity" is BS, so it doesn't matter anyway.

It's also high time the management of this site adopted a firm policy about deniers. Everything ccpo says about the situation is true, and this site needs to discourage the continuation of this ignorant denialist meme by stating clearly that it will not be tolerated. The disinformation the denialists espouse are akin to the ideas disseminated by Big Tobacco, indeed, many of the same people are involved!

Every time someone here posts a denialist text, it damages the credibility of this site and makes it little more than the sort of comment scribblepads you see under most conservative blogs and news sites.

The evidence for #1 is pretty extensive. You've got lots of scientists who have been looking at it from various angles, and they have found lots of evidence going back for many millions of years. In many cases, what they found wasn't even what they were looking for. The conclusion, supported by the overwhelming majority of scientists is: Yes, global climate change is real - and this should be no surprise, because the global climate has ALWAYS been changing. There is no such thing as a fixed global climate. This can be taken as something about as settled as anything that science addresses can ever be settled.

Causation, on the other hand, is a somewhat more open question. Obviously, if the climate changed in the past when there were not even any people around to change it, then there must be natural forces that change the climate. It is unlikely that these have gone away, but it is likely that scientists do not yet fully understand them. Thus, natural causes, at least as a partial explanation for GCC, cannot be ruled off the table at this point.

However, we also have experimental evidence that CO2, CH4, and other gasses can cause a "greenhouse effect". We have well documented evience to suggest that the concentration of such gases in the atmosphere has been increasing over the past couple of centuries. During those same two centuries, there has been a documented massive increase in the consumption of fossil fuels (source of CO2) and adocumented expansion of agriculture (a prime source of CH4 and some of the other greenhouse gases). There is no scientific basis for ruling anthropogenic causes off the table at this point, either.

Very possibly, GCC is caused by both natural and anthropogenic forces. It would be very hard to sort out to what extent each was involved, especially given how little we understand about each. The truth is that at the moment, no one really knows to what extent each contributes to the current global climate trends.

This being the case, what I am getting around to is this: The issue of causation is still open to debate, and will be for a long time. I get nervous when I see calls to close off the debate, and to silence those who want to question a dogmatic belief about causation. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing at all "scientific" about claiming that GCC is 100% anthropogenic in causation, and no questioning of that is to be tolerated.

Questioning whether or not the climate is even changing, or ever has changed, however, would seem to me to belong in a different category. This is in the same category in which you will find those who question whether the earth is actually round, or whether planetary orbits are really heliocentric. Are people free to hold such beliefs? Yes? Should they be entitled to unlimited bandwidth, paid for by someone else, to promote their beliefs? That is more questionable. I wouldn't blame those responsible for this site were they to implement a policy that those who post long or repeated posts asserting positions that are clearly contrary to settled scientific knowledge beyond dispute may have those posts deleted. Censorship? Maybe, but this website has to be managed too, and those responsible for its management have some responsibility to police it in a manner that will assure that it maintains its utility for its users. It is not a matter of sheilding us from things we don't want to read, but rather of keeping the space open for those with things to say that are more relevant and useful in light of this website's purpose.

WNC Observer, you are embarrassing yourself. Listen to the podcasts in links I provided near the top. The excess CO2 in the atmosphere has been linked to fossil fuels with utter certainty through the measurements of carbon13 and carbon14.

That's true but it proves nothing. No one is arguing that man made CO2 is not being put into the atmosphere. The argument has to do with it's effect on climate. The radiation absorption of CO2 no way near equals the temperature increases that alarmists claim. This is why they can't produce the effect in a lab experiment. They have to point to GCMs with made up feedbacks. Feedbacks that don't exist in the real world. So where do the climate sensitivity numbers come from? Ice core measurements. They went back and looked at the relationship between CO2 and temperature in ice cores over thousands of years. And then came up with a "climate sensitivity" of 3 degrees C. The most glaring problem with this is that the ice cores show temperature increases LEAD CO2 increases by several hundred years. It was temperature that increased CO2, not the other way around. The entire theory is based on a false assumption. And if the CO2 forcing theory were true, why would temperatures have ever gone down? The actual mechanisms for climate change are Milankovitch cycles (changes in Earth's orbit) and cosmic ray cloud seeding. Svensmark has proved the cosmic ray theory with actual lab experiments. Something the CO2 forcing proponents have NEVER been able to do.

Theory aside, lets look at actual measurements. Over the past 10 years CO2 levels have been at their highest in thousands of years. And also CO2 levels have continued to increase every year. So where are the temperature increases? Lack of corellation disproves causation.

Typical denialist bafflegab. You, my friend, should be banned from this site. There is simply no place anymore for the likes of this sort of disinformation. I won't bother to refute your "arguments" since that's been done so many times before, such as here:

What's refuted on that blog is the writer's explanation (by the commentors). Try reading the comments e.g.

It is my understanding from the IPCC researchers that only 55 scientists actually signed the IPCC study - the remaining 1,945 didn't even get to see it before it was published and a large percentage have voiced their disagreement with its findings. This excludes the 19,000 scientists who signed the Oregon Peititon saying this matter is bogus.

Global Warming is nothing more than left wing politics. Silencing dissent is another left wing trick. It must be rather unsettling for you (as a left winger) to see your star propaganda hoax losing steam. And the left wing US government crashing and burning. It will all be over soon, and relegated to the "history of failed hoaxes". lol

The sun transmits thermal radiation based on the temperature of the sun's surface(6000 degree C) per Stefan-Boltzmann's equation.
In fact you can calculate about how much heat is coming from the sun
as 5.677E-8*(6000)^4 x (radius of sun/distance to sun)^2=1584 W/m2.
The experts say its 1376 W/m2.

Even the earth at ~20 degrees C(293 K) transmits thermal radiation into space. If the earth were a blackbody the amount of radiation leaving the earth would be,

5.667E-8*(300)^4= 459 W/m2.

The earth is a greybody not a blackbody so this is reduced.

Radiation that is not transmitted is absorbed.
CO2, water vapor and other GHG absorb thermal radiation at certain frequencies. Air doesn't absorb any thermal radiation.
The emissivity of CO2 at 20 degrees C and 280 ppm is about .25.

The surfaces transmits different amounts of radiation at different wavelengths per Wein's law. The earth radiates at a peak of 10 micrometers.

Between 15 and 20 micrometers(by eyeball) which corresponds to 18% of the total earth emitted radiation(tabulated values of spectrum) or 83 W/m2 is the area where CO2 absorbs heat from the earth. As you can see CO2 doesn't absorb any sun emitted radiation(no peaks in sun range).

Now the question becomes how much more earth emitted thermal radiation is absorbed by 380 ppm of CO2 over the preindustrial 280 ppm of CO2. According to gas emissivity/ absorbance curves the difference is an increase of about 10%.

So your'e expecting everyone to believe that .001 parts of the atmosphere magically cause it to absorb 10% more radiation than the other 99.999 parts would have? You've got a great imagination! Besides the fact that actual measured temperatures haven't increased with corresponding CO2 level increases. Reality must be a tough thing for you to grasp as well.

And tell us all again all knowing one that there isn't enough lithium, nickel, or lead available to make batteries for electric cars. You'll save the carmakers a big surprise. lol

What you are missing is the fact that only certain gases absorb earth sourced thermal radiation so it doesn't matter how much air there is in the atmosphere, air isn't a greenhouse gas and heat passes right thru it.
Water vapor, NOx, methane, carbon dioxide, ozone and some other chemicals are. You said feedback paths were not important and this is wrong. The most important feedback path is cloud formation which reduce the heating effect. If you noticed the chart I linked to water vapor itself, a green house gas, adds to GW slightly.

As far as 'actual temperatures' go, the Arctic is getting much warmer. You don't live in the Arctic so you don't care. When the ice is melted what is going to absorb the extra 1.6 W/m2 of retained energy?

There isn't a lot of special materials left for batteries as is shown by the chart in this article. Actually the carmakers don't like batteries--they still favor fuel cells.

Stop listening to Watt, Monckton and Fox News.
You have a brain, use it.

I just purchased Al Gore's new book Our Choice, and for the most part it is a good read.He covers sustainable living quite extensively and presents many forms of sustainable energy as a means of (attempting) the transition from an over reliance on fossil fuels.I liked the fact he was very much ambivalent on the proposition of nuclear reactors as an alternative and gave a plethora of facts on the dangers of nuclear power plants and the hazards of their waste, including nuclear proliferation.He also gave a very laconic account on nuclear energies' economic unfeasibility without subsidiary governmental financial assistance.It was somewhat encouraging he mentioned the peak of the lower 48 (albeit a very small inference to PO)in one of the graphs towards the end of the book (page 336).Perhaps a gentle warning for the masses about the future we face.Perhaps the author is hoping that those who peruse that graph will read between the lines....maybe.

But alas,just like President Carter before him, he seems to leave the final decision on what course of action to take for the Democratic Process - and as recent contemporary history has shown - this is not the intelligent thing to do.
As past discussions have revealed, Jimmy Carter was for the most part summarily rejected when gave the sound advise of conservation.They chose Reaganomics vis-a-vis a powerful military that is needed to secure resources around the globe for continued growth and ever increasing standards of luxury.

To many people in our culture are only concerned with how successful they can be and with how much money they can acquire.
This will inevitably lead to failure and chaos.

What I hear from personal testimony, global warming should not be taken lightly for sure.I have heard from eye witnesses who have worked in Prudhoe Bay and lived in Anchorage that the glaciers in the area have receded quite dramatically.
From inlaws who lived in Juno, also,they have told me and my wife of the massive receding of local glaciers.
Added to these demonstrable phenomenom are the criticisms of the rightwing capitalistic megalomaniacs who only see $ signs and are the same sort of people who are inclined to believe in a-biotic oil.This alone gives climate change credibility.

I am of the opinion that peak oil will cause more immediate concerns for the survival of a great many people juxtaposed with global warming.The effects of peak oil are being felt at this present time economically and because of the propensity of the majority of the population at our current paradigm (narcissistic), warfare on an unimaginary level is a certainty.

To quote from the article above:

"...growth in the rates of consumption of resources are advocating unsustainability..."

This is the root cause of the worlds problems and is directly related to PO and GW - i.e. desiring more than what one needs - and originating from our culture, it is infecting the entire globe.

Reasonable people should boycott Hollywood and disconnect the cable and satellite services.I would have greater pleasure in shaving my head with a cheese grader and chewing on tin foil than watching the crap being aired on TV these days.It is the greatest promulgator of over consumption ever created and keeps the general populace in the dark as far as reality is concerned - all of the obtuse "green" b/s rhetoric aside.

To be fair, Carter lost the 1980 election on more grounds than just his energy policy.

If the Iranian Embassy had not been overtaken, if the helicopter rescue of the hostages had worked, if Teddy Kennedy had not challenged a sitting president of his own party, if the oil-induced inflation of 13% not hit in 1979, if John Anderson hadn't run as a third party candidate, peeling off moderate/liberal votes, Carter probably could have won, and I'd wager our predicament in 2009 might have been less dire.

"..If the Iranian Embassy had not been overtaken, if the helicopter rescue of the hostages had worked, if Teddy Kennedy had not challenged a sitting president of his own party, if the oil-induced inflation of 13% not hit in 1979, if John Anderson hadn't run as a third party candidate, peeling off moderate/liberal votes...yeah yeah yeah..blah blah blah...politics blah blah blah....

Iranian Revolution - evidence suggests this was backed by the CIA.

Helicopter rescue mission of hostages failed - if the Pentagon wanted those people rescued (in point of fact) they would have been rescued.I find it quite perplexing people would ever entertain the thought the US Military is inept in anyway.If they so choose they can take out anyone anywhere at anytime in a time frame that is measured in minutes....Oh, I forgot. Most people believe the fairytales they watch on television in that beautiful aura of periwinkle light....shades of Orwell's '84'.

Ted Kennedy - who cares.

13% inflation.Really? Do you think this might have had something to do with the ENERGY CRISIS Carter was predicating?

John Bayard Anderson = Ross Perot.

We are being manipulated.
It was not Carter himself that really offended the people, it was the thought of living within ones means that was an effrontery to most people: The political Chinese Circus aired on television is simply an enabler to the general public to justify their profligate lifestyles vis-a-vis at the expense of the rest of the world.
I was not attempting to make political commentary - lets leave political interlocution to the public restroom where it belongs - I was merely stating Carter predicated conservation, which (was) the very best way to solve the crisis.
That time has past, however, and it is our fault...not some political figure head entertainer.

This is a funny quote from the dog eating article, "Man’s best friend, it turns out, is the planet’s enemy." Its funny that we immediatly blame the dog, but humans are certainly far worse polluters than dogs. If dogs were the dominant species, I don't think they would be in such a pickle, since all they do is run around and kill stuff like wolves. We're always shifting the blame to someone else. Granted, not having a dog might make your carbon footprint smaller, so if it suits you, by all means kill it. But in china they already eat dogs and their CO2 is well on its way up.

Its funny that we immediatly blame the dog, but humans are certainly far worse polluters than dogs

If the author of the article was a dog, he might suggest killing humans as a better solution.

This is just another example of the delusion that humans are a special specie with an "immortal soul". This thinking justifies killing anything that might interfere with our "god given" right to dominate the planet.

No doubt that some dog breeding/ownership has some environmental issues - but the conclusion that we should start bumping off dogs just highlights our capacity for stupid solutions to serious problems.

Not too surprising if you consider the fact that all dogs are descended from wolves which are carnivorous apex predators. How many predators can a particular ecosystem support?

While I very much like dogs it is quite obvious that keeping them must by necessity consume an enormous amount of resources. This is very likely not a sustainable practice.

However I suspect the average scientifically illiterate and emotionally attached dog owner would put up quite a fight if they were told to get rid of their pet since most consider them to be on par with their family members.

This is yet another dilemma to add to an ever growing list...

I think this reader comment sums up what I consider to be symptomatic of the powder keg of irrationality that is pervasive in our society at large.

So what is acceptable — pet millipedes? The green movement is becoming "progressively batty," says Ralph Reiland in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. First we have to "shut down our oil, gas, and coal industries, bike to work," and take the briefest of showers. "Now they want us to cook our dogs"? Apparently, a pet "bug" is the only companion these "hysterical" activists would consider guilt-free.

And I don't know if anyone needs to tell people to get rid of dogs. The great recession has already forced a lot of people to give them up, and others will probably think twice before buying a new one.

One might point out also that if you insist on keeping a dog, a small one will use fewer resources.

One use of dogs traditionally in northern latitudes is for warmth in the winter--recall "Three Dog Night."

Any one who loves thier little doggy but can't afford dog food can actually feed a small dog on table scraps of almost any kind and believe it or not the little doggy will generally be ok.

We currently live in a world so full of advertising and cover thier xxx vets that we forget that dogs are omnivores and can digest almost anything we eat if it is cooked.

Billions of POEPLE live on less than ideal diets.I have personal knowledge of several dogs that have lived to a ripe old age on a diet of left over beans, bread, frying pan grease, meat scraps, potatos, cabbage, and so forth-and only a very limited amount of meat scraps at that-the meat left on well gnawed chicken bomes and ribs,etc.

And every dog I ever had the privelege of knowing well has eaten chicken bones on a long term basis without harm.

But don't court trouble by feeding them to a hungry inexperienced dog , especially one that is apt to gobble his food to save it from another dog.

Bottom line-you don't have to feel guilty about owning a small dog.A Great Dane, maybe so.

Thanks for the link. At the time I wrote the above, I had to hurry off and didn't post it. Here is the relevant section:

"June Fairchild thought of the name when she read a magazine article about indigenous Australians, in which it was explained that on cold nights they would customarily sleep in a hole in the ground while embracing a dingo, a native species of wild dog. On colder nights they would sleep with two dogs, and if a night was especially cold, it was a "Three Dog Night".[1]"

Interesting that it was Australians and dingos. I had always thought it was Siberians and samoyeds.

It's equally useful to determine whether dog owners would prefer to keep their dog versus the survival of an unnamed person. Many people scoff at ELF and other splinter groups who prefer nature to humanity, but I imagine there are quite a few dog owners who would gladly trade strangers for Fido.

We may not need to take action like that if diseases start taking hold. See below, posted 11/4/09....

"The Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) remind Iowans that in addition to protecting their families, friends and neighbors from the spread of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, it’s important to remember to protect family pets from the illness, as well. People who are sick with H1N1 can spread the virus not only to humans, but to some animals.

The Departments are sharing this message following the confirmation of a case of H1N1 in an Iowa cat.

The 13-year-old indoor cat in Iowa was brought to the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center at Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, where it tested positive for the H1N1 virus. The diagnosis is the culmination of collaborative efforts between IDPH, Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Center for Advanced Host Defenses, Immunobiotics and Translational Comparative Medicine, USDA, and IDALS Animal Industry Bureau.

“Two of the three members of the family that owns the pet had suffered from influenza-like illness before the cat became ill,” said IDPH Public Health Veterinarian, Dr. Ann Garvey. “This is not completely unexpected, as other strains of influenza have been found in cats in the past.” Both the cat and its owners have recovered from their illnesses.

People can keep their pets healthy by washing hands, covering coughs and sneezes, and minimizing contact with their pets while ill with influenza-like symptoms. If your pet exhibits signs of a respiratory illness, contact your veterinarian.

“Indoor pets that live in close proximity to someone who has been sick are at risk and it is wise to monitor their health to ensure they aren’t showing signs of illness,” said Dr. David Schmitt, State Veterinarian for Iowa.

Bartlett's laws don't include consumption of renewable resources, for some strange reason. Richard Heinberg drew on Bartlett's work, among others, to come up with 5 axioms of sustainability. I think they can be summarised thus:

Consumption of any resource beyond its renewal rate is not sustainable. Behaviour that damages our eco-system is not sustainable.

It seems to be very tough for anyone to imagine what a sustainable society looks like. Our modern ways of living are so ingrained, and reinforced every single day by almost any public media, that it's unthinkable that economic growth can stop. So what we see is attempt after attempt at a plan to solve this or that particular problem, so that the part can go on.

I can't see any chance that sustainability will be achieved without collapse. Virtually no-one is working towards sustainability, as defined in these laws, and the axioms.

I put up one post called Sustainability: Planning from a base of zero, in which I talked about what it might mean to live just within long-term resources--not just starting what we have today, and tweaking it down a bit. Quite a few readers thought I was a bit daffy, to even talk about such an idea. Some said, "This is unpleasant."

Gail, I haven't yet read your post, but I'm going to guess why some folks find it unpleasant: you logically focus on what is takes to sustain a population with limited access to resources, and come up with a much smaller number than currently occupy the planet. This then implies that there are many excess people being supported by fossil fuel and other critical resources, which we all know are running out. I think lifeboat inhabitants also run these numbers in their heads, and have similar unpleasant thoughts. Denial is a kind of mental sanctuary for many.

By definition, when we have exhausted all non-renewable resources, then whatever is left of humanity will be confined to consuming whatever renewable resources are available. They can further degrade the carrying capacity of those renewable resources, but not increase them (not very much, anyway, although previous damage might possibly be restored).

This leads me to think that sustainability will mainly not so much be a matter of society deliberately configuring itself, but rather will be pretty much a matter of sliding into a pathway which is tightly bounded, and from whose constraints we can no longer escape.

What we can do between now and then can make quite a big difference whether the level of that pathway is higher or lower: protecting ecosystems to minimize extinctions, preserving fisheries from exhaustion, keeping farmland from washing away, etc. There is also a role for "pioneers" and "pathfinders" who experiment with new, low-consumption ways of living that are truly sustainable (or at least point in that direction). There are other things that could be done. I am somewhat sceptical as to how much can be done at the national and especially global level, though. Too much inertia, I'm afraid.

Indeed. The first two laws cover resources generally but Bartlett explicitly talks about non-renewable resources in later laws, whilst ignoring renewable resources. It just seems incomplete, to miss our renewable resources. I also think it's important as I frequently encounter the false notion that renewable equals infinite. Even if we switch to consuming only renewable resources, we would still have to limit that consumption to the renewal rates of those resources (as well as not damage our habitat in that consumption).

This can't be anymore clearly or simply stated than carrying capacity. If you are acting unsustainably/exceeding the carrying capacity, you are inherently using resources, in aggregate, beyond sustainable - replacement - levels.

Oh, I'm sure he's well aware of that. But he mentioned non-renewable resources, even though it wasn't necessary, as it was implicitly covered by other laws. However, he did mention non-renewable resources but forgot renewables.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Albert Bartlett and think his lecture on Arithmetic, Population and Energy is a must see/listen/read. I'm just making what I think is a reasonable observation. If you don't, that's fine. Luckily, Richard Heinberg's axioms do cover renewables, in axiom 3.

There should be more to do than lie awake in the early morning worrying about the Malthusian Imperative, the thundering hooves of the Four Horsemen and the price Prometheus paid for giving Man the gift of fire—to have his liver torn out by the winged hounds of Zeus. Now, I see that Professor Bartlett has codified the scientific precepts of the Die Back, an inevitability for which Science offers no answer, letting me borrow from Garrett Hardin’s main premise in his Gloom’s Day essay of 1968: “The population [control] problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.”

“The population [control] problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.”

It doesn't need one and morality is irrelevant because if we don't find a way to become sustainable then you can be sure that the immutable laws of nature will take care of the problem.
I'm not sure we will like the method she chooses.

Oh! Morality, is irrelevant? Hmmm . . . that kinda makes things easy, doesn't it? We are, then, I suppose, a whim of nature. Whatever unfolds shall be at the pleasure of natural forces, and all this talk about right and wrong, free will, personal choice, reduces to . . . a struggle in brute force. Deca-billionaires in the life raft, first, twisted genes, and all.

Hmmm, if these "Laws" are to constitute a definition of what it means for a human society to be to be sustainable, they need to be made more rigorous.

First Law: [Positive] population growth and / or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.

This should be two laws at least. Both should also be qualified as to timescale; otherwise they are trivially true. Also, they should be qualified by the assumption that we cannot achieve power densities significantly greater than that in the throat of the Saturn V rocket motor outside of the lab - which is a long way of saying, no nuclear fusion.

Second Law: In a society with a growing population and / or growing rates of consumption of resources, the larger the population, and / or the larger the rates of consumption of resources, the more difficult it will be to transform the society to the condition of sustainability.

Should have the word "peaceably" inserted before "transform". (And never mind the split infinitive!)

Third Law: The response time of populations to changes in the human fertility rate is the average length of a human life, or approximately 70 years. (Bartlett and Lytwak 1995) [This is called "population momentum."]

This is good.

Fourth Law: The size of population that can be sustained (the carrying capacity) and the sustainable average standard of living of the population are inversely related to one another. (This must be true even though Cohen asserts that the numerical size of the carrying capacity of the Earth cannot be determined, (Cohen 1995))

Should be qualified by a "ceteris paribus" statement. If we genetically engineer ourselves to be four inches tall (but the same shape), our population could increase a thousand-fold for the same net impact - or less. (This far-fetched example invokes two of the things which need to be held approximately constant - technology and physiology.)

Fifth Law: One cannot sustain a world in which some regions have high standards of living while others have low standards of living.

The history of the world from as far back as ancient Sumeria seems to offer counter-examples. Needs a great deal of support, as it seems to be a cultural artefact.

It's unclear as to whether this belongs in a definition of sustainability.

Trivially true under a "ceteris paribus" assumption. Truth uncertain in the general case, where carrying capacity could be imported from the rest of the universe, while all countries retain approximately fixed boundaries. (Note: we don't know how to do that kind of importation. But it seems "only fifty years away"(TM).)

Seventh Law: A society that has to import people to do its daily work (“We can’t find locals who will do the work,”) is not sustainable.

Unless it exports or otherwise eliminates people with equivalent impact on carrying capacity to those it imports, and it deals with a sustainable society that can balance the exchange.

Eighth Law: Sustainability requires that the size of the population be less than or equal to the carrying capacity of the ecosystem for the desired standard of living.

Ninth Law: ( The lesson of "The Tragedy of the Commons" ) (Hardin 1968): The benefits of population growth and of growth in the rates of consumption of resources accrue to a few; the costs of population growth and growth in the rates of consumption of resources are borne by all of society.

Truth of the first part uncertain in the long run - it seems everyone loses eventually; the rich get the privilege of dying last and starving longest.

Tenth Law: Growth in the rate of consumption of a non-renewable resource, such as a fossil fuel, causes a dramatic decrease in the life-expectancy of the resource.

"Life-expectancy" is inappropriate for a non-renewable. "Period of exploitation" might be more accurate.

Could be preceded by "Law Ten minus epsilon: the use of non-renewable resources is not sustainable indefinitely."

Eleventh Law: The time of expiration of non-renewable resources can be postponed, possibly for a very long time, by:

i ) technological improvements in the efficiency with which the resources are recovered and used

ii ) using the resources in accord with a program of "Sustained Availability," (Bartlett 1986)

iii ) recycling

iv ) the use of substitute resources.

Unclear. I think it means "although these techniques can extend the period of use of a non-renewable resource, they do not make its use sustainable indefinitely."

Twelfth Law: When large efforts are made to improve the efficiency with which resources are used, the resulting savings are easily and completely wiped out by the added resources that are consumed as a consequence of modest increases in population.

Does not need to mention "large". "The effort to extend the period of use of a resouce is often nullified by resulting increases in population."

Probably not needed in a definition - it's a special case of the Fifteenth Law, below.

Thirteenth Law: The benefits of large efforts to preserve the environment are easily canceled by the added demands on the environment that result from small increases in human population.

Probably not needed in a definition - it's a special case of the Fifteenth Law, below.

Fourteenth Law: (Second Law of Thermodynamics) When rates of pollution exceed the natural cleansing capacity of the environment, it is easier to pollute than it is to clean up the environment.

Not needed; covered by the earlier law on carrying capacity (fourth law).

Incorrect as given. "The chief cause of problems is what seemed to be solutions to what seemed to be problems" is more likely to be true.

Not needed in a definition of sustainability, unless it's intended to mean "it is extremely difficult to transform a non-sustainable society from within - sustainability does not occur spontaneously."

The "corollaries" could then talk about the overwhelming propensity to try to extend the use of resources rather than transforming to sustainable non-use.

Sixteenth Law: Humans will always be dependent on agriculture. (This is the first of Malthus’ two postulata.)

Should start "human societies will ..." Again, absent radical technological or physiological change. Perhaps "for the foreseeable future" could be substituted for "always".

Seventeenth Law: If, for whatever reason, humans fail to stop population growth and growth in the rates of consumption of resources, Nature will stop these growths.

Covered in the carrying capacity law (fourth law). Not needed.

Eighteenth Law: In local situations within the U.S., creating jobs increases the number of people locally who are out of work.

Irrelevant to a definition, which must be timeless and placeless.

Nineteenth Law: Starving people don't care about sustainability.

Irrelevant to a definition.

Twentieth Law: The addition of the word "sustainable" to our vocabulary, to our reports, programs, and papers, to the names of our academic institutes and research programs, and to our community initiatives, is not sufficient to ensure that our society becomes sustainable.

Superfluous.

Twenty-First Law: Extinction is forever.

Deserves to be first. Could be put "P=0 (zero population) is a degenerate form of sustainability. The remaining laws deal with non-degenerate sustainability."

The odds are extremely high that nobody participating in this forum will live to see a fusion power plant-the odds are good that one will NEVER be built.

It's a very long way from banging two rocks together to start a fire to an internal combustion engine.

So far we have spent a good many billions and the careers of a lot of brilliant engineers and physicists on just trying to strike a spark from the rocks under "controlled " conditions.

IF it proves possible to strike the spark, the MATERIALS needed to build the plant will then have to be invented and manufactured-and right now nothing in existence looks even remotely feasible in terms of building a working fusion reactor capable of producing large amounts of power.

The whole idea is unfortunately however embedded in the political process and we are stuck with it.

The money should be diverted immediately to renewables reasearch in the fields that show promise-geothermal, wind, pv and csp, etc. and into conservation research.

I do not find it hard to believe that a new super efficienct insulation could be invented and manufactured-at least we don't have a lot of research backing up the assertion that it CAN'T be done.

Eric,
MAYBE the rocks have been banged and the sparks have been struck.

I don't think these things have yet been verified.

At any rate the lab equipment used to strike a spark is utterly unsuited to actual power production-the amount of heat generated will be enormous and must be continously produced and somehow carried away to heat water to generate steam.

Magnets don't control water and everything under consideration seems to be based on magnets. Magnets that are super expensive ,too.

The steam will need to be under very high pressure and very hot.

SfaI k there are no metals that can be used to control the water which can also be used within such powerful magnetic fields due to induced currents and the disruption of the fields.

I get my data from the lecture on the subject by Cal Tech chemist -full professor-but I don't have the link anymore.

I don't think it is hard to build super-insulated homes, and not terribly expensive. It's just not what we've built.

I look at my house -- thermal wrapped around the outside capturing heat in the summer and cold in the winter as much as the converse, with insulation inside. It's durable (really the most durable part of the building), but subobtimal. More layers, with durability outside but mass inside, with insulation in between, would seem to make far more sense.

No mater what, "sustainabilty" is ultimately unsustainable, because Earth is unsustainable and will vaporize when the sun goes red giant. The depletion of P will do us in before then, anyway, if an asteroid or comet doesn't do it first. In any case, just how sustainable can any multicellular species be, anyway, given their < 1 billion year track record?

"Sustainability" is thus about making it possible for humans to live on earth for as long as they can, but with the understanding that there are no guarantees as to how long that ultimately can be.

Extinction is forever, but extinction is also inevitable, eventually. "Sustainability" is all about putting off that "eventually" as long as we can.

Agreed. I think sustainability is about us humans not bringing about our own demise by our actions. We have no control over external events, nor do we know for certain when or if those events will occur (we don't have complete knowledge - at least that we know about - on any aspect of the universe). Therefore, they should not form part of a sustainability drive (at least not form a central part of sustainability planning).

First Law: [Positive] population growth and / or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.

This should be two laws at least. Both should also be qualified as to timescale; otherwise they are trivially true. Also, they should be qualified by the assumption that we cannot achieve power densities significantly greater than that in the throat of the Saturn V rocket motor outside of the lab - which is a long way of saying, no nuclear fusion.

I don't think timescale needs to be included. What would be the point? So, you're saying that sustainability means that growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained for X years? Or, alternatively, that sustainability should only be a target for the next X years (which may be decades, centuries or millennia)?

Of course, some external event may render sustainability practices futile and, eventually, the earth will become a barren place or be consumed by the sun. However, those external events have unknown timescales so all we can aim for is to live sustainably, using only the yearly budget of resources that the earth and sun afford us. As soon as you put a timescale on it, people start thinking that just a little growth is OK, or that timescale becomes meaningless at some time into the sustainable period (e.g. if the period is 100 years, would 50 years of sustainability be OK in 50 years time?).

I agree that some of the laws are trivially true but, amazingly, most people still don't understand that, so these trivially true "laws" still need to be stated.

Fifth Law: One cannot sustain a world in which some regions have high standards of living while others have low standards of living.

The history of the world from as far back as ancient Sumeria seems to offer counter-examples. Needs a great deal of support, as it seems to be a cultural artefact.

It's unclear as to whether this belongs in a definition of sustainability.

I took this law to mean that regions with low standards of living will inevitably endeavour to raise those standards closer to those of the other regions. Consequently, the higher standards regions will seek to maintain the differential.

This seems reasonable but, if the world was less connected, this law may not be true.

Incorrect as given. "The chief cause of problems is what seemed to be solutions to what seemed to be problems" is more likely to be true.

Not needed in a definition of sustainability, unless it's intended to mean "it is extremely difficult to transform a non-sustainable society from within - sustainability does not occur spontaneously."

The "corollaries" could then talk about the overwhelming propensity to try to extend the use of resources rather than transforming to sustainable non-use.

I took this law to mean that when problems are considered in isolation, the solution is likely to cause other problems (which then get considered in isolation, and so on). Or, perhaps, that the solutions to problems are rarely, if ever, looked at in terms of their overall impact - that is, the impacts of the solution are never considered if it is seen to solve the immediate problem.

We're seeing this now, of course. Is it just me or is there really an increasing profusion of grand schemes to solve the energy problem or the climate change problem, without a comprehensive impact statement for any of them?

A couple points for now on laws one and three. On the first, it is only going to be so long till someone comes along and says that economic growth does not necessarily mean growth in resource use and need not negatively impact the environment.

My main response to that is that any such phenomenon should then not be called growth, another term or metaphor should be used for that kind of development. But I suspect that in most such cases the growth has off-shored or hidden in other ways.

On the third law, I wonder if the 70 year lag in changing population growth patterns could be altered by policies that not only target number of kids per couple but also aim to encourage people to have kids later in life. It a person has two kids at 15, and they each have two kids at 15, and they again each have two kids at 15, the one person has created three generations totaling 14 people (fifteen, including herself).

But if the same person waited till she was 45 (to take the other barely biologically possible extreme for the sake of the model), she would have only created two new humans.

I would think that such a policy if successfully implemented would see population start to decline almost immediately, since most people in their childbearing years would be waiting up to 30 years before making any new babies.

I have to admit that the exact mathematical details of how this would shape the population curve are beyond me to figure. But it seems clear to me that a successful program to get people to postpone procreation and then only have one or two kids is going to bring the population down much more quickly than a program that only focuses on numbers of kids (unless that number is zero).

An added advantage is that, once you've convinced people to put off having kids until at least their late thirties, many of them will then likely decide that life can be just fine without a kid, or agree that one kid will be quite enough. In any case, biology will prevent them at this point from having really big families.

"An added advantage is that, once you've convinced people to put off having kids until at least their late thirties, many of them will then likely decide that life can be just fine without a kid, or agree that one kid will be quite enough. In any case, biology will prevent them at this point from having really big families."

Being a Female, and having been a reader here for years, I needed to log on to comment.

The sexist attitudes here are so thick as to be almost unbelievable. Everthing seen thru the testosterone lens, I consider suspect. Maybe we need to reduce the male population down to just a few breeding units chosen for their docility? Maybe they just need to be made sterile at birth? Maybe they would'nt kill everything on the planet? The list is endless.

Getting rid of 90% of the men on this planet would solve 99% of the problems..HA!

Look at the facts regarding the destructive nature of the male human, before you tell someone a female is not welcome.

In all seriousness, pick any problem, pollution, war, weapon, etc. etc. the list is endless, and who do you find behind it? Peak oil? How about peak male brain when it comes to living a sustainable lifestyle. I'm not anti male, not in any way, but Boys, the facts speak for themselves.

Welcome to the forum, solar. Let me be the first to apologize if any of the above seemed sexist. It obviously takes two to tango, as they say, so feel free to change any gender designations assigned above.

But your wonderful tirade leaves me wondering about the exact nature of your objection. Is it that you do not think that population growth is a problem, particularly compared to those others you mentioned? Or do you want to point out that population is far from being a female problem (and if I implied such a thing anywhere above, again, I apologize)?

Of course, if you are just interested in blasting a general anti-male screed here, have at it. And don't let the self appointed thread police discourage you.

I actually find listing all these laws, 21 in all, kind of comical.
And then someone suggests some 5 "axioms" of sustainability as though this is some sort of set of formal mathematical proofs.
My point is that someone trying to take this seriously will get confused by the inclusion of Eric Sevareid.

There is a difference in the brain wiring that suggests women in policy making positions with in a world with declining resources may be advantageous in many situations. In the mate selection game the male advertises himself with conspicuous consumption, the female advertises herself with blatant benevolence. You can't blame either sex for their particular traits, its the mate selection choices of the other sex that chose those traits to succeed. Its a feedback loop. Of course there's a bell shaped curve with standard deviations so there will be the occasional outlier that's overtly hostile for no apparent reason.

Somebody has to be the anchor for the 80/20 rule, and plenty of issues could arguably be male-dominated, and probably testosterone-driven. But fertility isn't one of them. The physics are obvious -- and population is the biggest problem of all.

People would ideally be sterile be default unless and until both parents wanted to be fertile and had the appropriate childbearing credit from society. But that isn't the way it works, and neither gender seems equipped by base nature to adequately control fertility.

As for me, I consider estrogen cycle observations suspect as well. A 30-day low-pass filter is a useful tool in my house.

There is a reason why men have that testosterone and that is for millions of years it has been genetically selected as advantagous for our, individual and group, survival. Just because those testosterone levels do not help us out now in the docile society within which we live does not mean they wont be nessesary some point in the future.

Getting rid of 90% of the men on this planet would solve 99% of the problems..HA!

Not really, it would only increase the number of females available to the remaining men.
Since males can impregnate large numbers of females It probably wouldn't solve the problem of population growth on a finite planet. To do that you would need to eliminate 90% of the females on the planet and let the men kill each other off fighting for the small pool of remaining females. Hopefully the remaining females would have higher IQ's than you. /sarcanol

There is a fundamental difference between growth and change. Sustainability means no growth, it does not mean no change. There remains plenty of scope for the application of human intelligence and creativity, and these can result in changes that can make life different and better without any net increase in resources consumed.

It seems to me that Dr. Bartlett's point has always been twofold. First, there exist virtually no situations/problems that are improved by increasing population/consumption. [Note: there are some that are improved by increasing density, depending on how that density increase in achieved, but this is not the same thing.] Second, there is virtually no hope of actually addressing the above reality until people understand, accept, and are willing to act on the basic mathematical facts.

Climate change, peak oil, peak (insert your next favorite resource here), pollution, food, yada, yada, yada... every single one of these things is made worse by growing population/consumption.

Any honest discussion of "sustainability" has to start with these facts, has to start with population/consumption. Without doing so, virtually all "solutions" will be temporary, quickly overwhelmed by population/consumption growth. Unfortunately, population and consumption (in the form of standard of living) are the live wires of global politics (and national politics for that matter). The result?.... I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for meaningfully "sustainable" solutions or policies any time soon.

Thankyou Brian,for a consise and relevant post which is what a lot of the previous posts are not.

My personal take on this is that a massive die-off is inevitable,sooner rather than later as we have such a gross population overshoot.The situation is exacerbated by a general lack of awareness,not only in the population at large but in the so called "leadership".

My only hope is that nations of predominantly European origin will wake up to the threat and cease their crazy immigration policies.In the coming hard times there will be little scope for selfless compassion outside the nation state.

Overpopulation threatens the quality of life for people everywhere. Population Connection is the national grassroots population organization that educates young people and advocates progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth's resources.

My only hope is that nations of predominantly European origin will wake up to the threat and cease their crazy immigration policies.In the coming hard times there will be little scope for selfless compassion outside the nation state.

The problem is that if you question immigration, you will be immediately siezed on for being a Nazi. The Greens are the best ones at this. Green politics sees no connection between environemntla destruciton and high population growth and their answer for dealing with the problem is to open the flood gates to immigrants and then "embrace" their cultural divcerstiy which includes having lots of kids.

Regarding any nation's immigration policy - I think the very first questions to be asked are:

What is the total number of people we want to reside within our borders? Is that number sustainable over the long run?

Once these questions are answered, then the mix of native born versus immigration can be addressed in a sensible manner. I have never heard the US immigration debate prefaced with these questions. I've never hear a stated goal for the maximum number of native born that would be optimal in terms of long term sustainability. Allowing immigration simply for reasons of compassion or labor supply is a dumb approach. Encouraging growth of native born is just as dumb.

We need also to recognize the need to sustain, enhance and protect our natural systems. Buffering of environmental effects of pollution, recycling of water and other renewable resources and production of food directly (brazil nuts, etc) and the detritus cycle (adjacent estuaries).

I don't think Dr. Bartlett's laws ignore climate change at all. I'm looking for contagion within communities in scaling back consumption. If people would even just change their eating habits and put themselves lower on the food chain, this would impact oil use as well as carbon emissions. I've been working away (and ignoring my paying work in freelance graphics) at my web site, which I really hope will inspire people, especialy the younger generation, to learn how to eat more like the majority world. They benefit immediately by spending way less on food and eating healthier. They're doing something they can easily demonstrate to friends (by inviting them for meals). It's so obvious to me...

Here's the digg, reddit and SU links for this post (we appreciate your helping us spread our work around, both in this post and any of our other work--if you want to submit something yourself to another site, etc., that isn't already here--feel free, just leave it as a reply to this comment, please so folks can find it.):

THESE are the laws that should be hanging in public courthouses and halls of government. The ten commandments are baby-step laws aimed at trying to bring the beast out of Man and to start civilizing him. These laws that Bartlett has clearly outlined point toward real hope for the human race to live in balance with the abundance this planet provides and to not squander it's wealth for short-term selfish desires that only help the lucky few to be born where the most petroleum and coal is burned. Professor Bartlett is espousing we follow a more conscious adult responsibility for current and future generations.

As Dr. Bartlett said at ASPO during his talk:

There's a time for growth, and it's when you are an infant. Our time for growth is past.

This is an interesting post.
allot of postings or comments treat peak oil as the main problem and debate when or if it hs already occured. Or details are posted about certain fields, which is all great, but sometimes I wonder if some people realize peak oil is just a symptom. The real problem is growth. If our population were stable at one billion people right now, just like it was in the early days of the Industrial revolution..., then peak oil would merely be an inconvinience and not a potential disaster with thw possibility of a population crash.

the crux of our problem is growth in population and resource consumption.
This makes depletion a potential nightmare, rather then an inconvenience.

The pre industial population of Europe was stable for several hundred years. This sustainablity was achieved mostly through a high death and low fertility rate brought on by malnutition and disease. This what a sustainable lifestyle will be like in the future assuming we cannot find some sort of energy source to allow us to boom and bust in popultion again.

By that, I mean that all we can really hope to do is approximate sustainability.

FYI, I have been giving presentations on sustainability lately. I gave one last week at Stanford, and I give one next week at the Pacific Rim Summit. I have to say that sustainability is one of the most misused words around.

Sad but true. Ultimately there is no such thing as a renewable resource. The only realistic thing we can do is agree on a time frame and hope to maintain our resources within that time. As you say: Entropy will win in the end.

Robert, we often confuse problems with symptoms. There are few problems, lots of systems. How do we tell the difference? If we suppress a symptom, the root problem rages on. If we eliminate the root cause of the problem, all the symptoms fade away.

In your slide show you are addressing the symptom of energy shortage, and your solutions may temporarily reduce that symptom.

The way to tell if a lifestyle is sustainable is to imagine a world in which all people live that lifestyle in all successive generations, and see what the outcome is.

Compare families of low, middle or high incomes that limit themselves to 0, 1 or 2 children with families of low, middle or high incomes that have 3, 4, 5 or more children.

Which of these six lifestyles is sustainable in perpetuity and which are not. The Kiwi islanders did not need high technology and a luxury lifestyle to destroy their environment.

Yes, the slide show tries to address one problem and I can't even tell if the process is even approximately sustainable. At what scale? What other resources are used and at what scale? But, addressing only one of the problems doesn't approximate sustainability.

By the way, if Brazil has a per capita oil consumption of 4.3 bbl and a per capita oil production of 3.2 bbl, it is very hard to see how that approximates to consumption and production being "fairly balanced", or that Brazil are energy independent. 1.2 bbl per person needs to be imported - that's more than a third of the local production.

But, addressing only one of the problems doesn't approximate sustainability.

Well, that will be one of my jobs to address. You can't expect me to go through a full-blown LCA in a few slides. There is a bit more to the process. But it also isn't my job to address all sustainability issues for society. I will do my part in the energy sector.

1.2 bbl per person needs to be imported - that's more than a third of the local production.

Brazil is in very good shape with respect to their oil reserves, and are in fact forecast to become a net exporter. Right now their production is several hundred thousand barrels a day higher than when I wrote that. Further, even if that wasn't the case, relative to U.S. consumption - which was the comparison - they don't have much of a gap to fill.

But it also isn't my job to address all sustainability issues for society. I will do my part in the energy sector.

Quite right. Provided we have an energy source that is sustainable up to a certain scale, it's up to society to decide whether it will use that energy source sustainably. However, it may be that we don't actually need a new energy source, to be sustainable. We could, for instance, try conservation, zero growth and legs.

Are you not trying to provide a scale of energy that will enable BAU? If not, how are you pitching the reduced scale?

Are you not trying to provide a scale of energy that will enable BAU? If not, how are you pitching the reduced scale?

I can only assume that you have never read anything I have written? Of course I don't believe BAU is possible. I don't have to pitch the smaller scale; it is inevitable. I just want to contribute some silver BB to that scale.

You assume wrong. You have varied your opinions over time, which is good. However, if you are pitching this, presumably to obtain funds or other backing, then how do you pitch the notion that this must be done on a sustainable scale? Yes, smaller scale is inevitable but almost everyone is hoping for a miracle.

Why do you think we need this additional energy source, over and above conservation and living locally? Do you think it's not possible to live sustainably, without this energy source?

However, if you are pitching this, presumably to obtain funds or other backing, then how do you pitch the notion that this must be done on a sustainable scale?

Nope, no pitch. We have backing. That's why I joined up. We have the backing from people who are doing this for reasons other than to make a quick buck.

Why do you think we need this additional energy source, over and above conservation and living locally? Do you think it's not possible to live sustainably, without this energy source?

People have lived sustainably at various times through history, but they weren't always good times. Having energy is pretty important in my view. Doing it sustainably - and local is my target - can be done. It just can't be done on a huge scale.

This needs a lot of editing. The list loses its focus and seriousness somewhere around law number 8. The fifteenth law ("solutions are problems") might be a good cautionary aphorism but offers no interesting comment on the nature of sustainability. The fourteenth law ("When rates of pollution exceed the natural cleansing capacity of the environment, it is easier to pollute than it is to clean up the environment.") seems to me nonsensical; the ease or difficulty of polluting is not really affected by the environment's cleansing ability. Regarding the eighteenth law, what is a reference to "local situations in the US" doing in a list of supposedly universal laws? The tenth law is pretty much a tautology. I could go on like this...

The laws in this list that are most directly relevant to the concept of sustainability, and the ones which are the most well argued for IMO, are the First, Third, Fourth, and Eighth. I respectfully suggest removing the rest of them, not so much because they are untrue (although some of them might be), but because they distract from what should probably be the main points.

There's been no revision or revocation of that command. Since unending population growth is the ultimate cause of the demise of human society, and God could not possibly be so stupid and lacking in foresight (being omniscient), obviously he never said that.

I asked Bill McKibben about this once, knowing that he was a believer (Methodist). He pointed out that this is one commandment that humans have managed to carry out in spades, and it was time to turn our attention to some of the others.

He also wrote a great book on reasons for limiting one's own reproduction, "Maybe One"

One can disprove the existence of God via this issue:
"Go forth and multiply."

Or, though no one can guess at God's motives, maybe He expects a heavy harvest.

And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
Revelation 14:15

To play devil's advocate, in theory would these sustainability laws be true if the size of the universe (or the number of universes) is infinite? You can never use up all of something that is infinite, so anything would be theoretically sustainable in an infinite universe, no?

No. The universe would have to be available to humans for it to be true (if the universe was infinite). There is certainly no guarantee that the whole universe is available to us, nor is there any guarantee that anything outside of this planet is available to us. The only known is that we can live on the planet and have this planet's resources available to us, including the energy that comes from the sun (though that is currently all employed in powering the energy systems of the earth).

Excellent post. Bartlett does a good job discussing the problem of the quantity of human life on spaceship earth. Now we need a report on the quality of human life.

Before fertility could be easily controlled the thoughtful, hard working, productive members of society had as many children as did people lacking those characteristics. Now those thoughtful, hard working, productive folks are dramatically limiting their fertility while others are carrying on business as usual. That may accelerate the collapse of modern civilization and restore the natural feedback mechanisms, starvation, disease, predation and exposure.

In a truly civilized world raising a child would be a privilege that would have to be earned, like the privilege to drive a car, perform brain surgery, practice law, or engineering.

Is this the end of ancient energy as the baseline for our civilisation?

Does this mean we have to rethink how are structures are designed.

Can we continue to rely on anything the old structure produced without rethinking it within the new idea.

Our old system is designed to push us forward, this has stalled, taking the good parts and leaving what's not needed anymore behind (offcourse we keep the knowlage alive and make sure we don't forget), is all it takes.

The only usefull thing and really outstanding is our communication netwerk, this is in my opinion the only thing we could redesign and addapt to the new structure we desperatly need.

To get here we needed an overlord, farao, emperor, king, president, all some sort of overseeër who can turn into an warlord when they panic or forget what's their job (or to do something about the gold ending up in one place, or when some form of energy runs out). Our history is full of these, not so clear thinkings, at some point in time.

The only reason we have made it this far, is because of them. We can always point out the things we shouldn't have done, with hindsight. But most of these people are very clear sighted and have the most difficult job we ever invented. They are the reason we can communnicate, they have kept it all together and I personally am gratefull for that.

At this point in time we are only looking back.

The only thing that can save us is by looking forward with the most positive idea we can think of. Focusing on only the wrong/bad/evil is no goal at all,

It's that easy.

A blank page.(or yellow, red, black and white)=taupe.

This, as always, are just personal opinions, nothing to get obset about, we can write whatever we want, that's our new freedom.

The many assumptions about 'too many people' make me very uncomfortable. One assumption is that it is necessary to have the "highest standard of living possible" = easiest, most pleasurable.

This planet can support a lot of people IF we all grow some food, walk and bike more, live a simpler and more active lifestyle and follow the fast periods of our religions. (Every religion observes at least partial fast periods throughout the year.) Additionally, traditional societies had numerous ways to keep population down naturally- continence, celibacy for monastics and the unmarried, and fasting times in marital relations.

If you find yourself reading this and thinking "I don't wanna"- THERE'S the problem! (This includes me!)

However you and I think of God- some call Him the Universe, some set up Gaia in that place- we are all running into inexorable consequences. We've been given numerous operating instructions, and we don't wanna.

Many thanks to all on this forum, and others, who are grappling with how humanity can really grow up.
Best, seraphima

The many assumptions about 'too many people' make me very uncomfortable.

This planet can support a lot of people IF..

I feel extremely uncomfortable everytime someone suggests the planet can support more people - regardless of their standard of living or means of food production. The issue is much bigger than meeting the basic consumption needs of humans - we are not the only life form on the planet.

I would least trust the worlds religions to get us to a point of reasonable balance with our global ecology.

I read Seraphima as saying the planet can support "a lot" of people, not necessarily more. Now, a lot could be our current 6 billion, the projected 9 billion, or maybe 1 billion. That's still a lot, in my book.

I completely agree with you other comments on meeting humanity's needs within the constraints of the rest of the planet. I haven't seen a lot of evidence that the world's religions are on the same page.

The many assumptions about 'too many people' make me very uncomfortable.

This planet can support a lot of people IF we all grow some food, walk and bike more, live a simpler and more active lifestyle and follow the fast periods of our religions. (Every religion observes at least partial fast periods throughout the year.) Additionally, traditional societies had numerous ways to keep population down naturally- continence, celibacy for monastics and the unmarried, and fasting times in marital relations.

Without oil inputs in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel for mechanized farming and irrigation using fossil water, we are in overshoot of the planet's carrying capacity- probably by somewhere between 500% and 700%. That is, if all the oil was gone tomorrow, we would be able to feed and shelter less than a billion people using sustainable agriculture and energy inputs(and that number shrinks as global warming takes effect.) The fact is that there are too many of us. I cannot reduce my consumption level to one-seventh of the global non-oil-assisted average without dying. Simple as that. I can bike all I want, those cold, hard numbers just keep staring me in the face.

This is not a question of living a western lifestyle- it is about whether we survive as an organized society or experience a Malthusian die-off. We need fewer people living less energy intensive lives. No amount of "traditional" methods will change our numbers in any significant way. Most western countries(the US is a notable exception) are below replacement fertility; that is, couples are averaging less than two children per family. For this to occur, a large number of Catholics must be ignoring their "traditional" religious teachings.

I believe this one thing- people turning their backs on a bedrock religious principle- will turn out to have been one of the most important factors if we survive peak oil and climate change. Populations are trending downwards everywhere (see the book "Fewer"), and my feeling is that it is not from celibacy and "fasting times in marital relations", but through birth control by technological means. Sustainability can only be achieved if we use population reduction as one of the primary tools. If the population is not reduced, we will at some point experience an unanticipated and unplanned "fast" period: a really long one where we all die.

Stuart Kauffman's book, Reinventing the Sacred, does a wonderful job of showing us how unpredictable the future is by carefully demonstrating how life as we know it in all its complexity would not have been predictable via the laws of physics. He gets passionate near the end of the book about arriving at some sort of global ethics, and adopting a new view of the sacred as the creativity inherent in the universe. I believe that personal responsibility is all we have and that rather than arguing theory and policy, we should be living the change we feel will work and making friends in the process of spreading our ways.

I cannot reduce my consumption level to one-seventh of the global non-oil-assisted average without dying. Simple as that. I can bike all I want, those cold, hard numbers just keep staring me in the face.

Granted. However, Americans have such an outsize impact on global resource consumption that we are the ones who can make the most impact by using less energy. Your basic American has the equivalent the energy consumption of 40 Chinese peasants or Mauritanian goat herders.

We have the most room to cut back. All that bicycling and local food eating does make a difference. We are still flat out wasting more energy than most nations consume, and that's even without tackling the well documented huge structural inefficiencies in transportation, agriculture, urban design, etc.

Far from saying that the that the carrying capacity of the earth cannot be determined, Cohen (1995, cited above) actually spent a whole book discussing ways to determine the carrying capacity of the earth. In the final chapter, he said that the limiting constraint is water to irrigate grain crops and the limit is 10 million. What I thought was really cool was that the difference between exponential growth and gradual decay was whether the exponent was plus or minus .00000 something. That is, the critical exponent is zero to five decimal places. What matters is the sign.

That is something which we can only see in the rear view mirror, as the measurements are too noisy to see it in real time.

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